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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The AFT is Finally Fighting Testing (Not)

The American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) is expanding its drive “against excessive testing”
with a pithy and pathetic new campaign called “Learning Is More Than a Test
Score.”

AFT
President Randi Weingarten said the campaign is intended to de-emphasize
testing and bring back arts and physical education. However, according to the Washington Examiner, she conceded (as she has always
done) that testing has a crucial role to play. Indeed, Weingarten has supported
legislation and helped broker contracts with school districts that promote the
use of student test data to evaluate teachers (see here,
here,
here,
here
and here).

The AFT is
not really opposed to high stakes tests. The name of the campaign, “Learning is
More Than a Test Score,” implies that the union accepts the tests as one aspect
of learning, while its reference to “excessive” testing implies that it simply
wants less of it. Either way, the union has accepted the inaccurate and
discredited assertion that high stakes tests improve learning outcomes and capitulated
to the corporate education “reformers” attempt to rationalize and profit from
public education (i.e., testing is big business for the test and textbook
publishers).

However,
even from the perspective of a public servant (the perspective usually taken by
the unions, since they are terrified of being accused of putting their own
wellbeing above that of their students), the tests should be opposed. Test
administration takes considerable class time away from actual learning (as much
as 2-6 weeks, depending on the school). The drastic consequences for schools
compels many to sacrifice even more class time for test preparation, sometimes
even to the extent of slashing entire programs (e.g., physical education, art,
music, science). The tests are stressful and anxiety-provoking for children,
yet serve no educational purpose (i.e., children cannot learn anything useful
from the tests). They also make school seem even more boring and meaningless,
contributing to students’ sense of alienation from learning and disdain for
school.

Even from a
taxpayers’ perspective all tests should be opposed, as they cost billions of
dollars and suck revenue out of the classroom, where it can benefit children, handing
it over to test and textbook publishers. In California, alone, it is estimated
that the new Common Core Standards (CCS) exams
will cost $1 billion
to implement (most of it going toward new books, test design, and computers and
software to administer the tests). Yet there is no evidence that any high
stakes standardized test has improved learning.

Indeed, the
real impetus behind the testing mania is corporate profits, not improving the
learning or wellbeing of children. In California, where $20 billion has been
slashed from K-12 education over the past 4 years, the state Board of Education
voted to adopt the CCS two years ago, knowing
even then that it would cost more than $1 billion and that the state would
have to borrow or slash further to get the money. Yet California already had among
the toughest standards in the nation. There was no educational benefit from
changing the standards, no potential for it to significantly improve learning,
graduation rates or the achievement gap.

To a rational,
fiscally conservative person, no need plus no money should have equaled no new
test. Instead, heavy lobbying by the educational publishers convinced the board
to spend money it did not have on a test it did not need, thus further
impoverishing California’s schools. It will be interesting to see how this
plays out, with Governor Jerry Brown’s supposedly balanced budget and promise
not to make any further cuts in K-12 funding. (Proposition 30, while doing
nothing to restore the $20 billion cut over the past 4 years, was supposed to
hold K-12 funding steady, but it is not yet clear whether the cost of CCS has
been factored in).

More is Less?

Rather than
opposing more testing, AFT and NEA have come out in support of CCS (see here), arguing that the CCS tests will be
better and more meaningful than the previous ones, even though the tests have
not yet been created and it is impossible to know how they might differ. By
most accounts, though, the new CCS exams will not significantly decrease the
amount of class time lost to testing, anxiety for children, pressure on schools
to improve at all costs, or cuts to “nonacademic” programs.

To be fair, the
AFT has made a statement in support of Seattle’s Garfield High School teachers
who are boycotting Washington’s MAP test. This is a unique and positive step,
as neither the AFT nor the NEA have supported this kind of teacher civil
disobedience in the past. The unions’ historical perspective has been that this
is tantamount to insubordination and failure to fulfill one’s job
responsibilities—thus administrators would be justified in disciplining them. On
the other hand, the AFT is not providing any material, logistical or tangible
support, nor are they promoting similar boycotts or civil disobedience
elsewhere—actions that would be necessary if they really want to see an end to
the testing mania.